


Made to be Broken

by furrylittlebantha



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Rebel Spy Mara, Sith Emperor Luke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26553226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furrylittlebantha/pseuds/furrylittlebantha
Summary: They get drunk first—or pretend to, sprawled on white fur rugs, two crystal goblets and a bottle of his finest wine. They pretend to loosen, to laugh, to open up.They pretend, and they both know it. He watches her calf muscles as her long legs spill out of the gown, and they’re taut and tense. She watches his eyes as he sips the wine, and they never lose that hell-forged calm.They pretend, and she wonders all the while what broke him so badly, and he wonders all the while why he’s allowing this. And it’s the hundredth thousandth time they’ve pretended and wondered what they wondered.The difference is, she knows it’s the last time, and he doesn’t.Yet.
Relationships: Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24





	Made to be Broken

**Author's Note:**

> Old fic, posting here for archival purposes

“There are rules about this,” he says calmly, holding her at arms-length, two hands on two smooth, bare shoulders. She shrugs him off and grins—scarlet slash across flickering shadows, eyes too brilliant against the darkness. A devlish grin.

“You’ve already broken so much, Luke. Most of it wasn’t even made to be broken. Why bother about a little thing like rules?”

His hand rises, wavers at her shoulders, skips up decisively to her face and brushes her cheekbone with the back of one finger. “Because they’re made for a reason.”

She grins again, madly, and seizes his finger in bared white teeth. He jerks away with a small curse, frowns at the purplish indents on the knuckle.

“Weren’t expecting that, were you?” She winds around him like a silk scarf. “I think that’s why you keep coming back. I’m unpredictable.”

“I—come back? I, Mara?” He leans back, surprise giving faint depth to the flatness of his eyes. “Please. Live in a fantasy if you like, but don’t play games with me. I’m not a good sport.”

She laughs, and it’s a jagged, uneven sound, somewhere between an aria and a death moan. Hatred, mania, passion, wistfulness, love—they tumble past him through the laugh, twisting out of reach before he can understand. But he’s never really understood her.

“It’s no game, my sweet.” Her fingers crawl up his back, spider-like.

“A comedy?” he suggests.

“A tragedy.” 

She flinches a little as his mild blue eyes inspect her.

“Let’s not be melodramatic, dear. A tragedy? Hardly. I’m not sad.”

“Yes,” she whispers. “I know. That’s what’s so tragic.” Something solemn and still hovers at the corners of her painted face. Watching him, an answering fissure appears on his face—but only a tiny bit, and only in his eyes. For an instant, they’re not quite so flat anymore.

The moment passes.

“Enough.” He disentangles himself from her and straightens his collar. “As long as you’re here, let’s get on with it.”

And then the walls go back up in her eyes, too, and they’re brilliant, brilliant green again, feverish and mad.

“Let’s,” she agrees.

_It comes. It cannot be stopped. It has waited for long, bloody decades, and it will wait no longer. It is a starving man with bread in his hand. It is the tide turning. It is a woman in labor, contracting, shuddering forward, inexorable._

_It is the sun rising._

_When the sun rises, the darkness cannot survive. The night creatures must flee, or die. It does not care which one. It comes, and it will not stop for anything. For anyone._

_Leia Organa Solo watches the spangled coronet of her brother’s reign—his throne, where he has sat and ruled the galaxy these many years. She watches, and feels the contractions of the galaxy pass over her._

_“Not yet,” she murmurs, only half to herself. “But soon.”_

_Later—she is not sure how long—a hand slips around her waist._

_“Hey, your highnessness,” somebody murmurs close, breath fluttering the fine hairs at the nape of her neck. Somebody nuzzles her there, where the baby curls lie. Distractedly, she moves into his arms, eyes never leaving the glittering planet below._

_“Tell me, Han” she says suddenly. “Why don’t I feel anything? I should be happy—or sad, or something. He is my brother, after all.”_

_“Was,” somebody growls, voice muffled in her hair. “Was, Leia.”_

They get drunk first—or pretend to, sprawled on white fur rugs, two crystal goblets and a bottle of his finest wine. They pretend to loosen, to laugh, to open up.

They pretend, and they both know it. He watches her calf muscles as her long legs spill out of the gown, and they’re taut and tense. She watches his eyes as he sips the wine, and they never lose that hell-forged calm.

They pretend, and she wonders all the while what broke him so badly, and he wonders all the while why he’s allowing this. And it’s the hundredth thousandth time they’ve pretended and wondered what they wondered.

The difference is, she knows it’s the last time, and he doesn’t.

Yet.

_Slowly, the fleet flickers into existence. Slowly, it glides into crisp formation. Slowly, the engines thrum into readiness; the turbolasers shift their massive bulks into attack positions._

_Slowly, It rears its head and hisses. It is hungry. It has waited. It will be satisfied today—vengeance, a force more primal than love, will be satisfied today._

_It only waits for the sign._

_Slowly and silently, the ships gather above Coruscant. No alarm is raised. No shrieking klaxons sound. There will be no reprisal today—not this time._

_The time for waiting has passed._

When they are good and pretend-drunk, they start to talk about things. Nothing innocuous; the idea of meaningless niceties never crosses their minds. There is too much wilderness to thrash through.

“Do you think it could have been different?” she asks idly, twining a lock of his hair through her fingers.

He settles deeper into her lap. “Different? Different how?”

She frowns off into space. “I don’t know…nice.”

He laughs. His laugh is the exact opposite of hers, is smooth and modulated and subdued and she hates it. He laughs and caresses a small pale scar on her kneecap.

“That would be different, wouldn’t it?”

“Very,” she agrees, then decides to ask him a question. It’s not like she has anything to lose, after all. “Luke…how did your father…”

And the fingers stop caressing, and she cries out as they rake, talon-like, across her leg, leaving straight red lines in their wake.

“Never that question, Mara,” he says clearly. “You know better. Never that one. Ask me anything else…”

“All right then, I will.” White-lipped, she stares at the blood on the rug. The fur is oiled, and her blood does not soak in, just sits on the strands, plump red droplets. “What would you do if I betrayed you?”

He twists in her lap to look up at her, but she is gazing studiously away.

“I don’t mind betrayal,” he tells her quietly. “I would mind if you stopped liking me, though.”

Her head whips back, glares down.

“I hate you,” she informs him, as if it were an obvious fact.

“And I you,” he says affably. “But in spite of that, we like each other immensely. Just because things haven’t turned out—nice—doesn’t change the fact we were made for each other.”

“Made to be broken…” she murmurs, and he cocks his head quizzically, not having quite caught it. She shakes her head and smiles.

“Never mind. Okay. So I do like you.”

“Good.” His eyes drift close, and she resumes playing his hair. Time passes. After a while, he opens one eye and asks lazily if she has actually betrayed him this time. She tells him yes. He says, oh, and they don’t talk much after that.

_Leia watches, and at some point the rhythmic shudders of the galaxy sink within, no longer pass over her. She wonders absent-mindedly at it—and then her face pales, and her eyes widen with fear and fury and joy, and she clasps the curve of her belly and her fingers are shaking._

_“Han,” she chokes. A passing officer hears and draws close, face flushing._

_“Is it time?” he asks eagerly._

_“Yes,” she breathes, brown eyes staring through him. With a funny victory whistle, the officer starts to dash off. Coming to, she grabs him by his collar and reigns him in._

_“Not that time, you idiot.” His face deflates. “Get my husband,” she orders, and cannot stop the sharp intake of breath at the end of the command. His pale, bulging eyes suddenly bulge even further in comprehension._

_“O—oh—ah—I—I—s—s—see,” he stammers, and totters away. Leia grimaces in irritation, then in pain._

_“Ooph,” she blows out. “I appreciate the symbolism, baby, but you have your father’s timing.” Silently, she pleads for more time._

_But the child she bears cannot wait. And so her body shudders, and contracts, and moves in time with the ripples of the galaxy._

_Beads of sweat gather on Princess Leia’s upper lip, and she clings to the wall for support, but she does not stop watching Coruscant._

They go for a walk, ambling through gardens, old corridors, rooms, memories. When they walk, they hold hands. People see them and smile indulgently—until they catch sight of the fair-haired man’s face, his still blue eyes.

They are leaning against an ivy-covered stone wall when her eyes flicker up. His follow, more slowly, but before they reach the zenith she is kissing his chin, and he smiles and lets it pass.

They both feel it now. They’re not pretending any longer, simply choosing to keep it unspoken. They both feel it—they both know.

Their mortality weighs on them, and they savor each moment together, like drops of rainwater in a cool chalice.

_Her water breaks. She draws in a shaky breath as wetness runs down her legs, pools at her feet._

_“Leia!” Han is beside her all at once, and there is fear and joy in his tone, but no fury. The fury belongs to her alone._

_He tries to guide her away from the transparisteel viewport, toward the knot of huddled medics. Angrily, she shoves him away._

_“Almost,” Leia mutters. “We’re so close…”_

_It takes a lot of convincing to make her move, and even then, she only complies when she is having trouble standing up._

_“So soon…” she whispers while they help her away. The medic is frightened by the eerie glow in her eyes._

And everything is soft murmurs and smooth hot flesh and silk sheets and slow, stately ecstasy.

_“Now,” Leia screams, but they cannot distinguish the word from all the other sounds she makes. Han grips her hand reassuringly, and does not understand the sudden anger that flashes in her eyes._

_“Breathe, honey,” he shouts excitedly._

_“Kriff breathing,” she shouts back. “Now!”_

Though nothing else about their relationship is gentle, the love-making is. It’s as if they don’t mind trampling on each other’s souls, but their bodies are precious. Or maybe that’s wrong; maybe it’s because when they make love, they are allowed to forget. Just for a little while, they are utterly free of the past, the future, the pain and the history and the scars and the might-have-beens. Just for a while, nothing in creation exists but Luke and Mara, Mara and Luke, all tangled up in each other.

He is too lost in the wonder of her glorious, breakable body to notice when her eyes turn inward, and her lips move in words not meant for him.

_Finally, they understand._

_“Oh,” Han says blankly, and at any other time, she would have laughed at the expression on his face._

“Oh,” says Luke when the spidery cracks crawl across the ceiling.

_She is Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, and in the end, they’re no match for her. Grimly, she hauls herself upright on the stretcher and peers down, down through the viewport, down to the spangled coronet. Beside her, Han bounces the baby awkwardly, helpless while his daughter bawls._

_“Why don’t I feel anything, Han?” Leia asks brokenly._

She cups his face in long, cool fingers, brushes his hair away from his forehead, kisses him very gently.

“I’ll like you forever, Luke Skywalker.”

In the end, it is she who is calm, and he who is wild.

“Like isn’t enough,” he shrieks as a chunk of rubble strikes her in the head. “It never was. Love me, Mara. Please…” he sobs, and smears away the blood even as a deafening rumble warns them of the futility.

“It’s too late for that,” she whispers sadly, and they both realize the truth of it. Too late…it was too late a long, long time ago.

He dies first. Right before, she sees his eyes change—just for an instance. She sees another man, another Luke, another life. And she wonders what her own eyes show as the impact sends her into oblivion…

_It howls into the night, sated and exultant. Everywhere on the ship there is cheering. Leia feels the triumph all around her, from the fleet, from the thousands of planets he crushed under his heel, from the broken galaxy, keening its joy, its final victory._

_She feels it, and it leaves her untouched._

_“Leia…?” Han tries to lay the baby in her arms, but she turns away, never taking her gaze from the smoking planet below. A vision flashes before her eyes—no, a memory. Bending over worriedly, Han examines her face. His own eyes darken._

_“Honey,” he says. “Luke…”_

_“Damn you.” She speaks to the city, ignoring her husband. “Damn you, Luke, for all you were.” And something breaks, and something blistering and vermillion pours into the hollow inside, and she feels, for the first time._

_“Damn you!” she cries out, voice raw and climbing, laced with an agony that was absent in childbirth. “Why?”_

_The savage joy of the galaxy swirls around her cruelly. Oblivious, it goes on rejoicing._

_Its mending has begun._


End file.
